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Social Media Safety for Children

With the ever changing world of social and digital media, and the growing interest of children wanting to hop on this trend, are you prepared to help safeguard them from the dangers?

We know, your kids are interested in the fast world of social media, ours are too. But how can you keep them safe from potential dangers lurking out there? The biggest impact you can make is being present. Monitoring. Openly discussing things with them. As parents, we are our child’s advocate, and mentor, so it’s our job to help guide them.

A few ways to keep your children safe(er) on social media:

1. Keep your child’s profile private so that only family and people you know see photos, important dates and other information.

2. Make sure they’re not posting personal details, including phone numbers, home address, and the name of their school or Social Security number.

3. Only allow them to publish photos and videos that don’t jeopardize their safety or their integrity.

4. Make sure they choose a strong password that can’t be guessed, and that it gets changed every three months.

5. Never allow them to accept friend requests from people they don’t know.

6. Keep an open dialogue with your children. Ask them to let you know if they’ve received private messages from a stranger, or from someone at school who is teasing, harassing or threatening them. Those could be signs of cyber-bullying or even a sexual predator.

Have an open dialogue with your children about current trends in social media. One “trend” circulating the inter-webs, started in Russia and has made its way over to the US. It’s called the “Blue Whale Challenge,” which is a suicide dare game. While we haven’t had any reported incidents in our area, we want to alert parents to it, so you can monitor. Our friends at Miami Police Department put together an informative video about the Blue Whale Challenge: